The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 17

c,mist<mt mth their existing /<>r God are loose: nnd if they hnppen to be con- (nhsnlutely and ultimntely); 1 Cor. iii. 23 eolidated anywhere, it is the Divine Word gi,·Ps the unity of the two ideas. by which they are tied fast. For it Is the Yer. 17.-And he ill before all things cement e.nd the baud of things, that has (,·er. 15: John i. 1; nii. 5S; xvii. 5; ReY. filled all thinge with its essence. And iii. 14; Prov. nii. 22-81). This cmphntio having chained and woven too-ether every- "he" (ohr&s) meets us in evcrv clauee thing, it is itself absolutely f;;ll of itself" and in every possible grammatical form, (Philo, • Who is Heir of Divine Things?' BI! though in the very grammar of the § 38). St. Paul's deolaration meets the sentence Christ must be•• all in all." "He" q~estionings indicated by language of this is kept ringing in the ears of those who kind (see the moro extended references of -were in danger of forgetting him in the Meyer nnd Lightfoot). • charm of other sounds (oh. ii. 4, 19: comp. Ver. 18.-The words, Aud he is the Head eh. ii. 9-15; Eph. ii. 14-18, for the same of the body, the Chnroh (eh. ii. 10, 19; rhetori<'.al feature; also Eph. iv. 11; 1 John Eph. i. 22, 23; iii. 8-10; iv. 15, 16; Heh. ii. 2; Re,·. m. 15, Greek). We now pass i. 3; John xv. 1-6), identify the medio.- from the origino.tion (ver. 16 a), through torial Lord of creation (vers. 15-17) with the continuance (ver. 16 b, present perfect the redeeming Head ot the Church, and f,,..,-,,rra, ), to the pre,sent constitution (ver. claim the prerogatives belonging to hiln in 17 b) of the universe as resting upon this the former cape.city as the basis of his e.nt.ecedent and perpetual He Is, which position and offices in the latter (comp. affords the underlying basis uniting in one Eph. i. 22). The Pauline doctrine of the the redemptional and the creative offices Church as the body of Christ is developed of Christ (vers. 17, 18). In the mouth of in Colosaians and Ephesians, especially in a Hebrsist like St. Panl, the coincidence the later Epistle, where it receives its frnit- of the doubly emphatic " He Is " with the fal application. Here the doctrine of the etymological sense of Jehovah (Yahweh; Person of Christ and the doctrine of the ;, lfw, LXX), as interpreted in Exod. iii., n., Church find their meeting-point as mutually can scarcely be accidental (see Lightfoot). implying each other, and together opposed And Greek readers of the LXX might to the double effect of early Gnosticism, be reminded of such declSJ'ations as those which tended first to lower the dignity of of Isa. xii. 4; ::tliv. 6"; :rl viii 12 (comp. John Christ, and then to impair the nnity of his i. 1, 2 ; Tiii. 24, 28, 58 ; xiii 19 ; Rev. Church (see eh. ii. 19, note). In 1 Cor. i. 8, 17; xxi. 6). In St. Paul's Christ, as xii. 12-27 and Rom. xii. 4, 5 the figure in Isaiah's Jehovah. sovereignty of redeem- of the body and members is merely a passing ing, rt:sts upon sovereignty of CI"f'.ati,e illnetration of the mutual relation of believ- power, and both a.like upon that perpetuity en in the Church; now the body of Christ of being which "the Son of God's love" becomes the formal title of the Chnroh, shares with the Father. Socinie.n exegetee expressing the fundamental and fixed coxi- give to " before" e.n ethical sense (" at ce.ption of its nature as related to him, who tke head of," " superior to"), in harmony is the centre of its unity, the source of all with their reference of vere. 15-18 to the vital energy and directing oontrol within it relation of Christ to the Church. But 1rpb (comp. the fline and branche.B, John xv.). never h.ae this sense in St. Paul: comp. also In vers. 16, 17 the writer passed from the the "Firstbom " of ver. 15, and again thought of the origin to that of the con- "Beginning," "Firstborn" (ver. 18). If stitution of the cosmos ; now he proceeds ver. 15 left us in any doubt as to the in the reverse order. (He is the head) who writer's intention to assert Christ's pre- is (the) Begilming (Rev. iii. 14; :ui. 6; mundane existence, this expression ought x:x:ii. la; Acts iii. 15: v. 31 ; Heb. ii. 10; to remove it. Langun.ge can haxdly be ::riL 2). 'Apxfi is without article, used as more explicit. And all thingain him consist a proper noun. It is arbitrary to identify (John i. 3, 4, R.V. margin; Heb. i 3; :ri. 3); it with hapx11 (" firetfrnite ") of 1 Cor. xv. i.e. haTJe their common standing, are consti- 20, 23 ; Rom. xi. 16. As 13xplained by the tuted a w/wl,e, The apostle speaks here the following words, it denotes, as in philosophi- language of philosophy. In Pluto and cal Greek, a first principle, originating cause, A.riBtotle, the term eansist (consistence) is fon, et origo (see Lightfoot's note and fonnd expressing the essentially philoso- references). To borrow "of the dead" phical conception of the inherent nnity, in from the following parallel clause weakens virtue of which the universe is such and the force of both. His body, the Church, forms e. single, correlated whole. The begins in bim, do.ting and deriving from A.le:z:andrine Judaiste he.d already found him its "o.11 in all" (eh. iii. 11, 4; 1 John ~his unifying principle in the Logos: "He v. 12; Rev. xxi. 5; 2 Cor. v. 17), This is J.B the: Image of God, to -whc,m alone fulness quito consistent with the "all things are Lclo,ip;a. }'or other things of themselves of God" of 2 Cor. v. 18 ; for the apostle OD, I, 1-29,] THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 11